


Learning to Fall

by RileyC



Category: Dark Knight Rises (2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-30
Updated: 2013-06-30
Packaged: 2017-12-16 15:43:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/863728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RileyC/pseuds/RileyC
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A slightly alternate take on "The Dark Knight Rises."  </p>
<p>Somehow Jim never expected to face a firing squad at the crack of dawn...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Learning to Fall

**Author's Note:**

> For the Comic Drabbles challenges: #038 - "Up Against the Wall."

Jim had always accepted that he could die in the line of duty on any given day. Somehow, the possibility that he might find himself facing a firing squad at the crack of dawn had not occurred to him.

 

This was it then, he realized as Bane’s men shoved him against the wall and Bane himself approached. A hoarse, bitter bark of laughter was torn from him, sounding too loud in this courtyard, as he watched Bane offer him a blindfold.

 

“No thanks,” he said. It wasn’t bravery or defiance that made him decline. He had turned a blind eye to too many things over the years, complicit by his silence. He’d face this at least straight on.

 

Bane shrugged, stuffed the strip of cloth in a pocket. “Surely you have prepared some final declaration for posterity, Commissioner.”

 

_Don’t call me Shirley_ , leapt to his tongue but he bit the words back. Bane wouldn’t get it and the smile Jim had to fight looked like it had Bane puzzled enough. That would have to do, Jim decided and shook his head. “Pass.”

 

He pressed back against the brick, tried not to notice how the brick was already scarred by gunfire; tried not to look at the blood that streaked it, some of it fresh. The ropes that bound him chafed his wrists and for a moment he did regret that he had never picked up any Houdini tricks from Batman. He regretted a lot of things, truth be told, and it didn’t really startle him that not saying goodbye to Gotham’s Dark Knight was high on the list.

 

Head tilted against the cold brick, he scanned the lightening sky and thought he would have liked to see the signal lighting up the night one last time. He would have liked a lot of things. Too late now, he knew and braced himself as Bane moved back and raised a hand to signal his men to fire.

 

_One … two …_ In the end, Jim couldn’t help it: he closed his eyes. _…thr – What the fuck?!_

Alarm in the ranks, Bane shouting, gunfire shattering the morning quiet, and Jim was soaring, _soaring_ through the dawn sky in Batman’s grasp.

 

They landed hard on a rooftop. At least Jim felt like the wind was knocked out of him. The rope that bound him fell away and gauntleted hands helped him to his feet. He rubbed his wrists and tried to gather his wits as he stared at the figure opposite him. Questions crowded his brain and the first one that made it out was, “Where the _hell_ have you been?” The accusation rang harsh in his ears and he winced away from it. “I mean--”

 

“It’s all right,” came the reply, the voice he had thought to never hear again. “I…had to relearn how to fall, Jim.”

 

Jim nodded, pushed at his glasses. Shoulder to shoulder, they stared out over their city and Jim felt the long winter start to thaw.


End file.
